June 08
2009

Pre-ordering the Comic-Con edition of Dollhouse DVD?
According to TVShowsOnDVD, starting July 6 you'll be able to pre-order the special Comic-Con edition of Dollhouse: Season One, for pick-up at Comic-Con. Otherwise, you try to grab one of the limited number of the sets being held back for sale at the event itself.

Yes, B!x, but your feet will hurt less while fighting the internet, and you can do so with a frothy beverage in your hand. And by frothy beverage I mean rootbeer float. What A&W puts in these things to make them so addictive, I'll never know.

Hopefully Fox's IT folks are ready for the influx so it doesn't crash like the ComicCon hotel reg system. But I also hope these sell out just as fast (was it 5 minutes again this year?) to reiterate to Fox that we mean business. Literally. "Keep making good stuff, keep getting our cashola." Rinse, repeat.

Still would really like to get one of those exclusive sets, though (but won't, obviously :)). They always do stuff like this at Comic-Con. There's never a "there will be an exclusive set available at one local retailer in The Netherlands, close to where you live" thing ;).

Are they somehow going to limit this to folks who are actually going to be at Comic-Con, or do we have to deal with the likes of, as said above, resellers?

I'm going to assume that they'll hold all preordered sets until probably the last day of the con and then sell the ones that haven't been picked up since it's entirely possibly that people who won't be at the con will preorder.

I for one, now have the dilemma of which version to get, DVD or Blu-Ray. I'd rather the DVD since it looks nicer. I've always hated the stupid Blu-Ray cases. Plus, I have no other BR films or shows and I'm still out on whether BR will succeed. I do have a PS3 though so it's not like I wouldn't be able to watch BR. And the BR have smaller numbers. >_>

I suspect they are only offering 5000 special edition sets based on the Neilsen ratings, and decide there can't be that many people who want the DVD if the show attracted three million people.
About 25 thousand (half Blu-Ray and half regular DVD) may be a little better, and maybe offer such a set on Amazon for a week. That would we smarter.

I suspect they are offering only 5000 special edition sets because they know Whedon DVDs sell and because making it hard to get even among the hard core geeks is the very smart thing to do. It's what I'd do, if I was them.

Rare= more valuable is silly. IMO. It is what it is, special or not special, and we (humans, including moi) are sheep, in this regard. Well, not actual sheep. They are happy to munch, regardless of how much or little pasture there is, and do not prefer , or probably even like, say, caviar. Sensible. Personally, I like caviar. What on earth am I talking about?

It's just human psychology. Making something harder to get gets you some free buzz and makes people want it a bit more. I for one am glad they're doing it. Between that, a panel, Joss's genuine Con charisma, and showing "Epitaph One," this should be a very good event going in to Season 2.

This sucks. I wish they would offer some online for the unlucky folks who can't make it to Comic-Con this year. Damn my boyfriend and his touring band! I guess I'll have to shell out the big bucks on eBay as usual. :(

Thinking about it Fox shouldn't have gone down this route. I'd have would brought out a basic DVD boxset and a limited edition DVD boxset for general release. Bit like what they do for video games. Then everyone gets a chance to get it, not just those who are going to Comic Con.

But to be honest, I do see their point in doing this. Comic Con is a crucial part in Dollhouse's chance to pick up new viewers over the summer. It is probably the biggest event to hype the show to the target audience. If they want a hype, it has to start there.

I don't think so. There's still a big part of genre, sci fi and even Whedon fans that needs to be convinced. Dollhouse is definitely not being watched by every Comic Con attendee. Um, at least that's what I'm feeling from the, erm, never-been-to-Comic-Con-cause-I-live-in-Austria-perspective. :)

I have to agree with Simon, I think that the people who attend Comic Con are Joss' core audience: he packs the largest hall even when he doesn't have a show to promote, so I assume most of the people there have already given 'Dollhouse' a look. Which all makes for a really long sentence, but it is early and my grammar skills are wanting.

Actually embers, it's the second largest hall and it only holds 5000 people if I remember correctly. Considering the con sees 125,000 attendees on any given day I think there's room for improvement in the Dollhouse viewer base there.

It can seem like Joss is the center of the con to the lay man (or woman) but the con is so much larger than you might think. It's just that his fanbase (us) is very vocal there.

The problem is not everyone is us and can be there. Then again, it's not like every fan can be at every convention or whatever to get every piece of exclusive junk* they have in the world. You could be somewhere else where others aren't and get your hands on something equally as shiny.